1863+Draft+Riots+NYC

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[|The New York City Draft Riots of 1863]

[|An introduction to the NYC Draft Riots of 1863] On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in the rebellious Confederate states. The proclamation marked a major transformation in the North's reason for fighting the Civil War. The war's first two years witnessed a string of Confederate battlefield victories and a growing realization throughout the northern states that the original war aim of preserving the Union had to be broadened to encompass the destruction of the racial slavery upon which the South's fortunes rested. By summer 1863, the Union army, which had been entirely white when the war started, began recruiting African-American soldiers, who would soon be fighting and dying to defend the Union and to destroy the institution of slavery...

[|A City Divided] The National Conscription Act, which was to be enforced initially in New York City on Saturday, July 11, exacerbated long-simmering class tensions in the city. The act proved especially unpopular among New York City's white working class, many of whom were recent immigrants from Germany and Ireland. New York City at mid-century had become an important destination for Irish immigrants, especially after the devastating Irish famine in the 1840s. ...

[|The Riot Begins] As a hot and muggy Monday morning dawned on July 13, 1863, a large crowd of New York working people moved uptown, gathering workers from workshops and factories along the way. German-speaking artisans and native-born Protestant journeymen (many of them volunteer firemen, a powerful political and organizational force in the city) marched alongside working-class Irish laborers; women joined with men. They banded together to express their collective outrage at the new draft law. Once they reached the Provost Marshall's office on 46th Street and Third Avenue, the scene of Saturday's first draft lottery, the crowd attacked the building, setting it on fire....

[|The Riot's Targets] By analyzing who and what the rioters targeted for attack during the riot we can begin to understand the complicated social, economic, and political conflicts that divided New York City's citizens in July 1863....

[|The Draft Riot of 1863]

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